[GUI Plugin] View Manager

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

BR - Maybe this is a good time to discuss what you didn't like about the VM changes before and what we can do to accommodate you.

As I recall, you wanted to be able to save column order/sizes without changing your sort order in a View.

In the latest test version, I was trying to allow separate Views that only do Sort and nothing else. But I see that I failed--if you uncheck "Columns in Split(right) Pane", the splitter is removed.

I decided to stick with version 1.3.2 when you did the changes to create a view from existing settings (Rellwood's request), that was in Oct 2016. When I used that feature the newly created view included the current column positions, order, and widths, but it did not included the current VM sort settings - for me that rendered the feature practically useless. But the show stoppers were:

• Under some circumstances the "Date/timestamp" column was being included the sort specs, which I regarded as bizarre - your recent discovery sheds some new light on that.
• My setting of Automatically apply view was being reset from a named View (e.g. "Published") to "*Last view used" all the time.
  

I'll try to recreate those problems when you release a new version and report back. But given -- my 'set and forget' usage of the plugin; not having a need to link VLs and VMs; and only having a casual interest in SV - its not something I want to spend much time on.

BR

[sweth]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

New Test Version
Let me know what you think.

After playing with it a few days: me likey. Thanks! While using it, I found a few places where things are a little clunky, but those are because of underlying Calibre behaviors that I don't think you would be able to change via the plugin, eg if you have the same column in both panes, and click on the column in one pane, the focus in the other pane changes to that column as well, which meant that I had to think more carefully about which columns I wanted in which pane rather than just having the same columns in both and scrolling to the appropriate part of each pane.

The only other thing I can think of is that this is a fairly noticeable UI change for the plugin, and might confuse people who simply updated the plugin because there's a new version without paying attention to what was included. Maybe for first version or two after the change, include a little blurb at the top of the plugin UI with a link to a post here explaining the change in more detail?

Related: once I re-read the post announcing the test version more closely, the difference between automatic/manual was clear, but at first, it wasn't obvious what those meant, and the tooltip didn't clear it up very well either. I'm not sure what would be clearer, though. Maybe "Choose what details are saved when 'Save View' from plugin menu is selected. 'Automatic' views will save column order, splitter state, sort order, and column width; 'Manual' views will only save column width, and other details can only be changed via this Customize Plugin window."?

Re: the known issues:

1. The old behavior of allowing unlimited sort cols is preferred.

2. The forced-sort-on-timestamp issue might explain some sorting weirdness I've seen on occasion; if it is easy to work around, that would be great, but given that that occasional weirdness never bothered me enough to even ask about it, if it is ignored I won't mind and probably won't notice.

3. Probably ought to be fixed but not if it requires any significant effort.

Thanks again for taking a stab at this.

[JimmXinu]

@sweth,

Sometimes things are more complex than expected. I've only gotten a couple of the issues figured out, but I want to record what I do have.

Horizontal Scroll Jump
Now that I've looked for it, I can see clicking a cell in one pane change the horz scroll in the other pane in ways I didn't expect, although not in quite the way you describe it. It happens when running with calibre --ignore-plugins so it's not a plugin issue.

After a couple hours playing with it, I tracked down the cause. I've opened a pull request that preserves the horz scroll positioning. Hopefully Kovid will accept it or come up with a better fix.

Add/Remove/Rename Views then Cancel vs Rebuild Menu

I think I've figured this out. But then I've thought that before.

[JimmXinu]

Here's another test version.

Issues addressed or remaining:

• Remove Auto/Manual -- Nobody seemed interested in different views for right vs left vs sort and configuration for it was both a bit broken and confusing. This version removes the Auto/Manual type distinction and just saves / applies everything all the time.
• Sort Columns -- This version applies as many sort columns as it has configured without limit. It also saves all the sort columns in the history, so you might end up with more sort columns than you had before when you save a view. BR, does that meet your needs?
• Sort on Date(timestamp) -- I haven't figured out where or why Calibre adds Date(timestamp) to the sort order, but it's the last item if you didn't have it earlier so I doubt it will hurt anything. I assume it's to make sure sort is never completely empty.
• Horizontal Scroll -- As previously discussed, the jumping horz scroll was a Calibre issue and will be fixed in the next version.
• VM Config View -- Add/Rename/Del then Cancel now works correctly.
• Apply View -- BR's issue with "Automatically apply view was being reset" -- I don't see that issue in this version.
• Apply View on Startup -- However, I am still seeing the issue described here with 'Apply View' not working on initial Calibre start up.

[JimmXinu]

FYI, there's a Calibre tweak setting for maximum resort levels. I doubt this will be noticeable to most people, but it is there.

ID: maximum_resort_levels

Set the maximum number of sort 'levels' that calibre will use to resort the
library after certain operations such as searches or device insertion. Each
sort level adds a performance penalty. If the database is large (thousands of
books) the penalty might be noticeable. If you are not concerned about multi-
level sorts, and if you are seeing a slowdown, reduce the value of this tweak.

# Set the maximum number of sort 'levels'

maximum_resort_levels = 5

[sweth]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

• Sort Columns -- This version applies as many sort columns as it has configured without limit. It also saves all the sort columns in the history, so you might end up with more sort columns than you had before when you save a view. BR, does that meet your needs?

Wait, so if I apply a view, sort on a col, and then save view, the sort will automatically be applied to the view now? If so, can including sorts in saves that way be easily made into an option that can be turned on/off? My most frequently-used views are ones where I apply them and then immediately after sort on something else, and I wouldn't want those additional sortings to be saved just because I tweaked a column width and clicked save.

(e.g. I have a bunch of custom columns, one for each Overdrive lib that I can borrow from, each w/ the wait time before a given book is available from that library, so I often apply my "Library" view, which sorts based on a calculated "Priority" column, and then sort on the wait time col for a given library, so that I get all of the books available immediately from that lib sorted at the top, and those immediately available books are subsorted by priority. I wouldn't want that extra sort based on wait time for that lib saved, though, because that is only one of a dozen libs for which I want to use the same view.)

[JimmXinu]

@sweth - Yes, the sort is also saved. That's why I specifically asked a couple times earlier if people wanted those things separately controlled.

OTOH, if your most frequent use is to apply view and then manually sort, why would it matter what sort is saved in the View?

[un_pogaz]

Thank for this plugin that serves me every day.

A question: I saw that the view profiles as saved in the library metadata.db , but where exactly (table and line)?
Would you be able to put an option to choose enters the library or in the user profile folder?

Also, when using the virtuals librarys in tabbed mode, would it be possible to create a tab collection system? (independent of collones views)

EDIT: A foud the location of view profiles (how did I do for missed this )

[JimmXinu]

@un_pogaz -

VM saves it's config settings including Views using Calibre's db.prefs.set/get_namespaced() under the key 'ViewManagerPlugin'. I don't recommend trying to modify the settings directly.

Virtual Libraries and their tabs are outside the scope of the View Manager Plugin.

[un_pogaz]

Ok, thank
I know VM does not manage Virtual Libraries tabs, it's a feature idea.

[BetterRed]

@JimmXinu - My bottom line is that I don't want the the specification of Views to be changed other than by me changing them in the configuration dialogues.

For one-off ad-hoc tasks I sometimes use the Sort By option in the book list context menu. When I finish the task I reinstate the View I was using and I expect the sort order I originally specified when configuring that View to be used.

Sometimes I inadvertently click on a header and it becomes the primary sort key, so I have to reload the View I was using. Once again I expect the sort order I originally specified when configuring that View be used. As I've said before: If I could, I'd disable the header-click sort feature.

Same with horizontal order of columns, to facilitate a one-off, ad-hoc task I occasionally drag columns into different positions, show/hide columns, and alter column widths -- this is when I'm most likely to do an inadvertent header-click sort. I wouldn't want any of that to affect the columns selected or their horizontal order in the View specification.

I must admit to having difficulty finding the motivation to test the new version. I don't need any of the features that have been added over the past couple of years, but I do want the existing features to continue working as they did in version 1.3.2 -- even if they don't work as intended. It is often the case that what one person regards as a bug, another person will regard as a feature

As time passes I find I'm sticking with what works more and more. I haven't updated my file manager for 4 years, or Firefox since version 54, and I'm using the version 2 calibre-server etc, etc.

BR

[JimmXinu]

BR - I appreciate your help regardless and completely understand if you choose not to spend time on testing things you don't plan to use.

And I feel the same way a lot of the time about things changing. I attribute it to middle age in my case. :-)

I had tried to come up with a way to add options to turn individual save/enable settings on and off but it came out as a confusing mess and didn't work as I intended.

Since the only people taking the time to comment (BR and @sweth) seem to be most concerned with "don't change Sort settings", here's a version that separates "Save Columns" and "Save Sort" into two different menu options.

@un_pogaz - It's theoretically possible VM could save and restore which VLs are shown/hidden as tabs. But I'm not sure that's what you mean and I'm not very interested in adding it.

[un_pogaz]

Yes, this I did mean.
You did not want to add that, ok, discussion end (I was only doing a suggest)

Reflecting on, it might be better to create a new plugin for this (a VM like)
I go posted this in "Plugin idea" thread.
But it's other way.

Thank for answering me and for this plugin.
Good continuation o/

[un_pogaz]

Feature Idea:

When no column is selected in View order (Left and/or Rigth pane), the columns are kept and only Sort order is applied.

(Currently, when no column is selected in Sort order, only View order is applied)

That would be practical, for example:
I use 3 View order and 4 Sort order different.
Currently, if I want to have every possibility it would make 12 (3*4) config.
Whereas if I distribute in 3 View order and 4 Sort order, either only 7 config.

With this feature, one could easily switch from one to the other, modify one config without reviewing all the others and especially, add or remove a config applicable to several others easily.

[Rellwood]

is there a way to edit/update a specific view without having to enter the modify page?

I have a named view but I want to edit/update it to the current gui settings instead of deleting it or going into the modify.